- Introduction
- Risk and Liability
- Systematic Approach
- Cessation of Captivity
- Training People Properly
- The Canadian "Do Nothing" Approach
Introduction
What is the real cost of hostage taking and kidnapping?
The rise in the actual number of kidnappings across the world is continuing to grow. In 2006 it was estimated that there were 25,000 kidnaps globally. This number only covered ‘official’ or reported events. Unofficial figures put the number as high as 100,000 with the leading countries being Mexico, Iraq, and India.
A growing number of Canadian companies send their people abroad without preparing them for this worst case event. This makes organizations vulnerable to both risk and potential liability.
The actual complexity of a hostage taking event is not well understood. When examined systematically preparing an organization for the worst case scenarios consumes a serious amount of time for a number of people. In addition to this, a crisis or dramatic event has a number of significant ripple effects that also need to be taken into consideration.
At the centre of this event are one or more employees who are experiencing some of the worst moments of their lives. If these events are not looked at and prepared for holistically, and the actual costs are not assessed, the moving parts will be unprepared to survive, manage, support, and endure the crisis.
At the centre of a kidnapping scenario is the hostage. Those immediately affected by the event include the captives' family, their work colleagues and the management of the organization or company that sent them abroad. Dealing with the issue is the alphabet soup of governmental agencies, DFAIT, RCMP, CSIS, DND, CBSA, Health Canada, and Privy Council Office (PCO).
Outside of this loop are the government, or factions thereof, in the host nation where the kidnapping took place. Additionally, non-government agencies may be brought in, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent, United Nations, Doctors Without Borders, etc. Others affected by a kidnap crisis include extended family and friends, as well as the insurance company that may have provided Kidnap and Ransom (K&R), travel, and health insurance. Through it all, the media circles, looking for the story. If the immediate family are not talking, the media will try the extended family, family friends or even in one case the owner of the nearby coffee store.
Back to topRisks and Liability
"An employer shall take every precaution reasonable in the circumstances for the protection of a worker"
- Ontario Health and Safety Act
A number of companies and organizations do actively prepare their people for hostile environments. However, most of these preparations involve a focus on prevention. Very few organizations outside of Government circles prepare their employees for the possibility of captivity when prevention and avoidance fail. Case in point CBC’s Melissa Fung: ”I wasn’t taught how to be a hostage”.
If an organization has employees working in a chemical factory, they need to teach them not only how to prevent a chemical spill, but also what to do if there is a spill.
What is the company’s liability if they only partially prepare somebody for overseas travel? If a company has sent a worker abroad, there is a reasonable expectation that they need to prepare their employees for a worst case event; in just the same way that First Aid training is provided for employees so they can deal with a medical event or emergency. According to the Canadian Labour Code an employer is obligated to provide a reasonably safe work environment.
If that work environment involves working on a dam project in Afghanistan, an oil well in Algeria or exploring for minerals in Pakistan then that duty care includes a duty to warn employees of the risks, and to prepare them adequately and appropriately through education and training. The organizations' obligation is to take reasonable and appropriate steps to ensure the physical and mental safety of the workers while they are conducting business abroad. Liability could result if the organization omitted to provide or prepare for something, which ought reasonably to be done. Cases in the US and Australia have confirmed this liability.
In the long run proper preparation can easily mitigate and reduce this liability. Proper preparation also includes training management’s response to an incident.
For other potentially dangerous or life threatening events organizations have risk mitigation strategies in place that include management response. Take for example the risk of fire. Not only do we practice fire drills in the workplace but we have designated employees who are workplace fire coordinators/marshals in order to manage the incident. When the fire brigade arrives there is someone ready to brief them on employee location, status and other details.
If an organization has someone taken hostage, is there anyone who is trained and prepared to provide the correct information to the RCMP or other Government departments when they arrive to help?
A delay in providing the correct details in both situations could be very costly.
Unlike in a fire hostage takings can be long drawn out affairs; potentially lasting years. During that time there may be a continuous requirement to support the family and colleagues, respond to media enquires, liaise with government representatives, provide bills and estimates to insurance companies and other groups, as well as a myriad of other small tasks.
The organization will be dealing with questions such as: What is being done? Is the hostage still being paid? Do they get overtime? Can a family member who doesn’t have power of attorney use their wages to fix a leaking roof? In some cases imprisoned individuals have been interviewed by the media and have publically asked the company to care for their family for the duration of their captivity.
Systematic Approach
A kidnapping involves a number of different facets and personnel and as such should be examined in a systematic way. This includes individual plans, management plans, media plans and family support plans.
As with any good incident response plans, there is a hope that they will never be needed. But once they are needed it is too late to start writing the policy and considering the “what if’s”. Most of the talent required to put plans is already there. Many companies have an operations manager, a Human Resource director or a media relations/affairs specialist, all of whom, at a minimum, will be required to take part in the response plan. If you have a health team within the company what is their role? If colleagues of the kidnapped person become overwrought who is responsible for providing help, and who is paying for this care?
The family will almost certainly need help. This could range from media relations support to psychological support and counselling. The family may also required someone to answer the phone on their behalf, or they may need to be placed in a hotel or safe location to protect them from the media swarm. Does your insurance cover this?
Also important: what is the cost, financial and otherwise, to the company in the case of crisis? If a top engineer or ‘prospector’ was held hostage, would the shareholders be concerned? If the company is busy dealing with this incident, will there be lost production costs? If it turns out the organization was unprepared, how willing are the personnel to undergo overseas tours on your behalf? Will you likely to attract top-flight personnel in the future?
Is the organization insured for these costs? If not, did the insurance company provide a real analysis of these costs or just offer Kidnap & Ransom insurance as a suggested methodology of getting your people back. All of this should be analyzed.
In certain aspects, the smaller the company the bigger the impact; if there is a Human Resources department of only one or two people, an incident like this will likely consume all their time. If there are already plans in place, the impact of a crisis can be managed and reduced. There is probably already someone within your organization who can get the ball rolling.
Another option is to have access to some of the few real experts in this field who can become the calm in the centre of the storm. In a hostile environment, calm can be contagious and the company skill set can be mobilized and utilized in an efficient and effective way.
Cessation of Captivity
"My release is one of the hardest memories of my captivity. I don't know why. Suddenly, my structure was gone. There was no one to tell me what to do.
My body was free, but my mind was not. I was conditioned to be whatever anyone around me wanted me to be. I had no opinions, no self-will. I didn't know how to make decisions."
-Jill Carrol
At some point, captivity comes to an end. Hopefully it happens successfully through negotiations or diplomatic efforts. In certain cases the hostage is rescued by host nation troops or by other means employed by Governmental direction. Paying ransoms is an emotive topic and will not be discussed in this article. The initial euphoria of the release is often replaced by ‘what now?’. The missing person has been freed, but there are a number of issues that need to be considered.
The best analogy is diving at depth. When someone is hundreds of metres underwater, they do not come straight to the surface right away. If that is done, it can cause physical trauma. Instead, they come up slowly.
Likewise for captives, their ‘depth’ can relate to the degree of unpleasant treatment experienced in captivity (such as rape, torture, loss of friends/colleagues in captivity etc.). If they are brought ‘to the surface’ immediately, and exposed to media, family and well wishers, there is a higher risk of mental and emotional trauma. Like a diver, time is needed to decompress in order to minimize negative after effects. Running this decompression process should be a team that understands ‘captivity reintegration’ and has been trained to provide this.
It has been proven that employing a psychologist, who has not studied captivity and the process of re-integration, can make a crisis situation worse. If a case involved child abuse or another niche mental trauma event, a psychologist who specialized in that area would be hired. Captivity is no different.
When looking for a psychologist to support a returnee, there are a number of knowledge areas that should be questioned prior to their engagement. This includes their knowledge of international best practices in this area, of which there are many. What is the assumed risk if the personnel employed have no background in this area, and inadvertently cause more harm? If international best practices are not followed, what is your liability?
Best practice employs a team of personnel to deal with crisis situations. The composition of the team may vary but at a minimum should include a psychologist trained in captivity and reintegration, a medical practitioner and an employee to manage the administrative aspects of the move. Other personnel on the team could include public relations and even a close colleague to help the captive person transition back home.
During this time the family will need help in managing their expectations and in understanding their role as part of the team in bringing their loved one home. Oftentimes, the family's role involves going out to meet the captive while they decompress. Case studies demonstrate that you will have much more successful reintegration process if the family is involved.
Support to returnees can last awhile depending on the level of physical or psychological trauma. Who is paying for this? Does your employee’s health insurance cover this?
Training People Properly
“Ideal levels of resilience in survival experiences are not in-born; they are situation-specific; if not acquired in a naturally-occurring manner, resilience must be learned.”
-John Bruce Jessen, Ph.D
When an organization is preparing their staff for a worst case scenario there are a number of questions that they should ask of the companies that provide the training. Key information to find out includes: experience, background, team members, international links, topics being taught and training methodologies.
Globally, there are few companies who do this properly. The few companies that do offer these indispensable services commonly have staff with a background in the military captivity survival training world, with years of experience delivering world class training. These are the people who have trained the Special Forces or intelligence professional. In many countries, these are the very people who form the core of government captivity reintegration efforts.
These experts include not only the instructors and trainers, but also the psychologists who need to be on the training team. If an organization that delivers captivity training does not have a psychologist, this is an indicator that they lack necessary resources to cope with an event. The psychologists in this niche generally have contact with one another and they have spent years being involved in captivity survival programmes.
There is a significant disparity between purely academic training and practical captivity training. In many countries, laying your hands on another person, restraining them or subjecting them to physical and psychological pressures could bring about a number of criminal charges.
In Canada these criminal charges include battery, assault, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of nervous shock. The prospective liability issues are numerous. Organizations need to be wary of training firms that do not fully understand the issues and vulnerabilities that they face.
Sending an employee to be trained by a foreign company does not necessarily limit liability. The consent forms need to be carefully scrutinized to prevent corporate accountability at a later date from either physical injury or psychological trauma. What degree of medical and psychological care is provided for the trainees and by whom? Has the company clearly identified a bone fide occupational requirement for this training?
The psychological and emotional aspects of captivity need to play a relatively large part of captivity training. . Other topics that should be covered vary from escape from restraints, actions during rescue, rapport building techniques and sexual aspects of captivity. If an organization has identified the requirement for practical training then not only should safe guards and risk management aspects mentioned above be identified but also how they intend to train the companies valuable human assets.
A specific methodology is currently used in Canada, the US, the UK and several other countries to help inoculate personnel against the stresses of captivity. If the training organization is not familiar with this and cannot explain it, they should not be providing the training. A lot of companies that offer this training are staffed by ex-special forces personnel who themselves have undergone this training. However, if the "experts" cannot explain the science and rationale that underpins good captivity survival training, it is ineffective.
The Canadian "Do Nothing" Approach
Certain companies will continue to not provide any training for their personnel. Their assumption is that, statistically, there is a very small chance that any of their people will get into trouble… and on that point they are correct. However, training, planning and preparation mitigate the risk and limit the liability should the unthinkable occur.
A recent league table on worldwide kidnapping placed Mexico, India, Pakistan, Colombia and Haiti in the top 12 countries with solid links to Canada. Foreigners remain the kidnap victim of choice. They generally yield significantly more ransom than the indigenous population.
Kidnapping is seen as a fairly low-risk source of income, with no initial investment and can be remarkably profitable. At the same time the probability of being arrested and convicted is low in most countries where the risk is high. Between 1997 and 2004, 11 million crime reports were filed in Mexico; 8.5% resulted in conviction.
The Mexican research institute ICESCI calculated that there had been 43,561 kidnappings in Mexico and that this number had risen to 77,833 in 2006. Mexico also had approx 17,500 cases of swine flu... but which risk got the most attention?
What needs to be assessed is: what is the potential cost of doing nothing in terms of risk and liability versus the cost of investing in an organisation's human assets?
For more information please contact Integrated Human Risk Solutions.
